Hoo boy, one of the most nerve-wracking parts of parenting has to be the worry that you're going to break your newborn. Now, for those who've more than one child, I imagine your anxiety level decreases with each successive child, because a) you've got experience and 3) you've already got a kid or two so this one's kinda back up. But I only say that since I was the oldest child.
But there's so much more to this fear than simply worrying that you're going to accidentally drop your child into the toilet or otherwise mistakenly begin World War 3 (perhaps late at night, after a feeding, trying to get your infant to sleep, and you begin browsing the interwebses and accidentally tell the computer, why yes, yes I would like to play a game, instead of blogging like you shoulda been doing), there are little things, and by little things, I mean your baby's bits and pieces.
So it turns out (and remember, y'all, I'm a board-certified medical doctor, and it may tell you something that I'm all worked up about this matter. And that something should be that nothing you do is going to protect your child from harm, no matter how much you know or what kind of ninja training you have, it doesn't matter if you're Albert Schweitzer, something's going to happen - these are the crazed thoughts I have in the middle of the night. When I should be blogging) that breastfed newborns have naturally runny poop, and a lot of them, and it's not diarrhea, even though if it were you you'd be running for the Kaopectate and cursing whoever decided to order a slice of cheesecake after the cheese plate and the malted shake and quattro formaggi pizza all washed down with Kahlua.
Anyway, today, after changing one of our beautiful baby girl's many, many shitty diapers, I noticed a red, beefy looking area of irritation to her poor anus, the same one that has sharted upon her loving father multiple times over the past couple of weeks, each time to his stunned surprise, and my heart just about cracked in two. What the duck!? Why does it look like that!? My wife and I fretted over the redness for a while, flagellating ourselves while trying, somehow, to encourage the other, no no, beloved, I must've been wiping her with sandpaper hands whereas you've been changing her with the gentleness of angels' farts, the quiet little kinds that the Precious Moments angels must have, not the thunderous kind that I have after eating quattro formaggi 'za.
Well, I'm pretty sure it's not candida (i.e. a yeast infection), I know hella sure what that looks like having seen it all the time at work. At this point I think that it's this sadly simple: we've been cleaning her too vigorously and conscientiously with her diaper changes. Our love for our baby girl has compelled us to overdo it. We've been changing diapers like the Abominable Snowman loves Daffy Duck in those Warner Bros. cartoons, I'm going to pat it and wipe it and call it George, and too much of a good thing, even cleanliness, can be irritating. Anally.
So, my wife and I have pledged to take it easy for a while, apply an ointment for comfort for a while, and see how things go until our next pediatrician's visit this coming Tuesday - we'll keep you updated.
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